Genesis

This Biblical tale is set in the scrub and chaparral of Mali's Hombori Tondo escarpment, one of the most austere and beautiful places in the world. Genesis recounts the epic feud between Jacob and Esau in the Book of Genesis, 300 years after the great flood. The film stirs an ancient welter of faith, greed, and envy into a frighteningly modern parable of religious hatred. Jacob and Esau's conflict corrodes their souls, but the more urgent question for Sissoko is whether this bitter schism can be healed before it tears apart their family for generations. Which will it be — a dynasty of hate, or a legacy of love? A masterwork of the modern diasporic cinema movement, Genesis' deep understanding of its setting makes it simultaneously a poem for those who have gone on ahead, and an elegy for those who remain, each seeking to wash the blood from the rocks.